


Old Familiar Places

by ama



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Characters Who Are Fine With Being Queer Even In The Pre-Stonewall Era, Developing Relationship, Family, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon, Queer History, Queer Themes, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George's relationship with Joe Toye wasn't exactly normal, or always happy, or easy to maintain. Sometimes he thought about ending it, or cursed the G.I. bill (which he blamed in the first place), but every time he made the five-hour drive to Philadelphia for a secret tryst it just felt... worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It all started because of that fucking G.I. Bill. And yeah, okay, maybe Luz could admit that it was a good idea, in theory, but it was also the source of a whole mess of trouble in his life, and for a good year or two he couldn’t hear the name of it without scowling. Because under the G.I. Bill, his little brother Thomas, who was whip-smart and had gotten an extremely lucky foot injury while serving in the Navy, could afford to go to Drexel University in Philadelphia. Tommy went, majored in Accounting, and was set to graduate in the late spring of 1948. The whole family was planning on going down and see him get his degree—when was the next time they would ever get to do _that_?—and George decided he might as well go down a day early and look up some of the boys from Easy.

He called Bill Guarnere two days before Tommy’s graduation, and received an enthusiastic response. Luz _had_ to come down and see everybody. Bill himself had gotten married—his wife was an angel, an honest to God angel, best woman he’d ever met—and he saw Babe and Spina pretty often, of course, because it turned out they all lived within ten blocks of each other. Go figure, they had to go all the way to Europe to meet a guy five minutes away. And Joe Toye had just moved to Philly the previous autumn. They would all go out and get a drink, have a mini Easy reunion.

So George staunchly ignored all his family’s jokes and complaints and made the five-hour drive from Rhode Island to Philadelphia by himself. He had a radio in his car, and he blared it as loud as possible for most of the ride. Then, once he had gotten through New York, he switched off the music and sang old paratrooper songs for the rest of the way. He was positive that, if enough alcohol was consumed throughout the evening, he would be singing them again soon, and it couldn’t hurt to have the lyrics fresh in his mind.

And maybe he really was looking forward to seeing all the guys, he thought with a grin as he rested his elbow on the window frame. _Maybe_.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled in his best Sink voice (it was bleeding into his Bull Randleman voice, which was a problem, he needed to fix that) as he strolled up to the bar. “Would you look at the sons of bitches they let in this place?”

“George Luz,” Toye said with a half-grin as he turned. “Who would have guessed.”

“Took ya long enough,” Guarnere said. He stood and slapped George on the back much harder than necessary, and for a few minutes they were lost in the happy babble of greetings. Joe, Bill, and Ralph Spina were there—Babe, the friggin’ traitor, had a 101 fever and was stuck in bed—and they wasted no time in shoving drinks at George.

The first round was on the house; the owner of the bar was a paunchy, grizzled old man who had been in the army during the Great War, and he knew the three Philly boys well. After that, they took turns fighting over the tab, which was fun. George found himself rehashing all of his old impressions by the second round. By the third they were shamelessly trading gossip. Who’d moved, who’d gotten married—Ralph and Joe teased Bill _ruthlessly_ about how well Frannie had him wrapped around her finger, while he beamed—who’d had children suspiciously fast. All of this, of course, was intertwined with wartime gossip, which meant they went over the Speirs conundrum for the five thousandth time.

“And after all that, you hear what happened with his wife?” Spina said, shaking his head. “Can you believe that shit?”

“Hey, is it true she took all his loot?” George asked as he lit a cigarette. He had already been forced to pass the pack around, because some things never changed.

“All of it,” Joe confirmed. “That’s what Malarkey said—he heard it from Lipton.”

“Lip would know; the two of them were thick as thieves, God knows why,” George said, shaking his head.

“And he had all that goddamn _silver_ , right?” Bill said. “Babe said Speirs got the goods.”

“Yup. All gone.”

“Perils of marriage, boys,” George said. “A toast to dodging the bullet—put the beer down, Bill.”

“Ralph’s out of it, too,” Bill insisted. “Fucker’s got a diamond ring burning a hole in his pocket.”

Spina blushed bright red, and there was another round of babbling and questioning as they asked for more details.

“All right, all right,” George said, his voice climbing over the others’. “Hold on, shut up. You old marrieds sit this one out, and me and Joe are gonna make a toast. To freedom—to independence—to never losing our spoils of war—to crushing loneliness and solitude forever and ever.”

“Amen,” Toye said, nodding as they tapped their glasses together. Guarnere laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, boys. You’ll get yours soon enough. Although speaking of Speirs, I hear he didn’t get the cream of the crop, really. Who was it, Alton More got the photo album, right? And Welsh got all Hitler’s silverware; Winters went to his wedding a while ago, brought back some pictures. I saw ’em. It’s a real nice set.”

“When did you see Winters?” Joe asked, looking puzzled.

“Toye, I’ve seen everybody, all right? I’ve got a file full of names, phone numbers, and addresses. Shit, I’ve seen _Sobel_. Only one who’s managed to keep away from me so far is Liebgott, and I’ll get that bastard one of these days.”

They talked for a while longer, and started singing sometime during the fifth round. Joe was still as horrible (but enthusiastic) as he had been during the war, and George and Bill’s singing, normally very good, was hampered by how hard they was laughing. Finally, after nearly three hours, Spina got up and announced that he was ready to go home. At that, Bill glanced at the clock and grimaced.

“You know, fellas, I should be heading home, too. Frannie’s about six months along now, and I don’t like leaving her alone all night. Hey, George, tell your brother congrats from me, all right? And don’t stay away for too long next time. Malarkey’s like what, three thousand miles away, so he gets a pass, but fuckers like you and Johnny Martin got no excuse.”

“Sure, Bill,” George drawled sarcastically. “What’s six, ten, twelve hours between friends?”

“You’re goddamn right,” Bill said, and whapped him good-naturedly on the head as he left.

And that left just Luz and Joe Toye. Toye looked at the clock, too, somewhat thoughtfully, and then went back to his beer.

“Don’t tell me, Joe—” George began.

“Nah, I got time.”

“Good man!” George said approvingly.

He clapped Toye on the shoulder and Joe grinned at him. It was a nice grin, with the old paratrooper cockiness but softened by the booze, and unthinkingly George’s touch became lighter. His hand trailed down the bumps of Joe’s spine and then up again, resting briefly on his shoulder before he pulled away and took another draught from his beer. Then he almost choked when Joe froze, his eyebrows lowering.

 _Oh shit_ , he thought. _I just made a pass at Joe Toye_.

His cheeks felt hot, but luckily George’s blushes were never that obvious. He kept his beer to his lips to try and hide his embarrassment, hoping that Joe wouldn’t see, and then set it down on the table and began telling a loud and rather cheesy joke about a French barmaid and an idiotic Nazi general. Halfway through, Joe stopped him.

“You’ve told me that one half a dozen times. Listen, George, you got a place to stay tonight? I’ve got a spare room if you need it.”

His eyes were dark and his voice was low. George felt a tingling in his hands, like someone had lit sparklers under his skin, and he shrugged.

“Yeah, I could—you know, if you don’t mind—I could use a bed. Thanks.”

He lit a cigarette to give himself something to do with his hands. _I just made a pass at Joe Toye… and I think he returned it_. He scratched his temple, breathing out a mouthful of smoke, and watched Joe’s throat pulse as he finished his beer.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

\---

Joe was the one who started it.

George was barely inside his apartment—he had just nudged the door shut with his elbow—when Joe seized his color and pulled him into a kiss that made the whole room echo with the clack of teeth and the rough pant of breath. He didn’t bother questioning it; he just reached up to grasp Joe’s shoulders and kissed him back.

It was exactly like he had imagined kissing Joe Toye might be like. Intense, but slow, demanding his full attention. After a few moments Joe began to walk backwards, a bit unsteadily. He was wearing a prosthetic tonight, which he had shown off at the bar, but the alcohol hadn’t improved his balance. Halfway across the room he stumbled and clutched at George’s shoulders for help.

“Shit—you good?” George said with a sudden rush of alarm, seizing Joe’s forearms to offer extra support. Joe snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” He bent his head and nestled his lips into the crook of George’s neck. “You good?”

“Right now, man, I’m fucking fantastic.”

“Good.”

Joe kept walking backwards until he fell back onto the couch, tugging George into his lap, and Christ if that wasn’t a moment he would remember for the rest of his life. The feel of Joe’s hair running through his fingers, the tight circle of his arms, the strong heat of his hands running up and down George’s back and then settling on the backs of his thighs, the deliciously familiar taste of beer and cigarettes on his tongue. Who knew how long they stayed there on that couch—at least half an hour passed without him even noticing it.

And then one of Joe’s hands was touching the button of his pants.

“Okay?”

“Yeah—yeah, can you—?”

He hiked up the bottom of Joe’s shirt because he was suddenly desperate for skin-to-skin contact, and wiggled his hips as Joe shoved his trousers and underwear down almost to his knees.

The position was awkward. He didn’t care. Everything was slightly fuzzy around the edges, and he had the sense that the alcohol was blocking something rather important from penetrating his mind. He didn’t care. All he cared about was the wonderful friction of their bodies pressed together and the constant touch of Joe’s lips and teeth against his throat. George rested one hand against Joe’s shoulder to keep his balance as he rocked against him and kept the other in constant motion--trailing up and down the warm expanse of Joe’s chest, or casually stroking his cock.

“Tighter,” Joe muttered against the skin of George’s neck. “Just—yeah. Jesus.”

His teeth dug into skin again, and he was quiet. He was quiet for most of it, except for his heavy breathing, until he came with a long, drawn-out moan in the back of his throat that George thought was the sexiest noise he had never heard. He shifted his position a bit—if he were sober he would be out of his mind with embarrassment over the fact that he was humping Joe Toye’s leg like a dog, but he wasn’t sober and Joe was looking at him with a kind of lazy indulgence so fuck it—and slumped against Joe’s shoulder as an incredibly satisfying orgasm shuddered through him.

“Well. That was nice,” he said in a bland voice, and then yelped “Ow!” when Joe’s hand jabbed him viciously in the stomach.

“Asshole.”

“What’d you expect, a sonnet? You have a very nice dick, but I’m tired.”

“Good thing you don’t have to move, then.” Joe shoved him off, onto the couch, and stood. He stretched and George winced at the sound of popping bones. “You want a blanket?”

“Yeah, thanks—what about the spare room?”

“Don’t have a spare room,” Joe smirked.

“Motherfucker,” he laughed. “What if I hadn’t been interested, huh? What if you read me wrong?”

“Luz… I may not be smart, but I’m not an idiot.”

Joe picked a heavy red blanket off the back of an arm chair and tossed it at George’s head, then said good night and headed towards his bedroom. George watched him go in a pleasant, still-tipsy haze, and fell asleep before the door slammed shut.

\---

His whole body was awash with soothing yellow light, he was comfortable and warm, and he was late. George knew it without even opening his eyes; he groaned, and managed to wake up and squint at the watch still on his wrist. Shit. He was _really_ late.

“Fuck,” he hissed as he jumped up, grabbed his duffel bag from where it had fallen by the entrance, and race to the first door he saw—which, luckily enough, was a bathroom. All he needed was a piss and a cursory shave. He threw on his suit (wrinkled from spending the night shoved in the bag, of course), and had his hand on the doorknob before he even thought about Toye. “Shit. Hey, Joe, I’m out of here—I was supposed to meet my brother for breakfast like half an hour ago. Thanks for putting me up, all right?”

Joe made some sleepy, wordless reply from the bedroom, and then George was gone.

\---

He strolled into his house late that afternoon, dragging his shoes halfheartedly over the rug at the entrance to dislodge any remaining city dust. He glanced automatically at the clock; he was supposed to be at his parents’ house in thirty minutes for dinner and graduation celebration part two, but he didn’t rush. A lot had happened over the weekend, and he felt like he needed a couple of minutes to screw his head back on straight. So George walked into the kitchen, shedding accessories and possessions as he went, dropping his suit jacket on the back of a chair, tossing his tie in a rolled-up ball onto the kitchen table, and got himself a beer from the fridge first. Then he walked back through to the living room and fell onto the couch as he looked listlessly around the room.

The house had been his for little more than six months. Before that, it had belonged to his aunt and uncle, but when Aunt Carla died, his uncle had decided he would rather move back to Massachusetts, where he had lived as a child, than stay. The house, of course, had to stay in the family. Tommy had decided not to buy it, since he wasn’t sure if he would live in Pennsylvania or not following graduation, so George had stepped up. He liked it. He had visited his aunt and uncle there frequently, and it was a comfortable place. Single story, three bedroom, big backyard, and chock full of nice soft beds and couches and pillows.

And he was probably the only member of his family who was comfortable with actually making it his own. The rest of them would surely have wanted to kept it the way Uncle Henry liked it, just in case he visited; George had cheerfully shoved all the stuff he didn’t want into the third bedroom and replaced it with his own haphazard but homey style of decorating. There were more ashtrays, fewer paintings of birds, and more pictures. He could sit in his favorite armchair (as he was now) and comfortably survey the line of family portraits on the mantelpiece. The very last one was a picture of him in his dress uniform from before he shipped out. George tried not to look at that picture too often--it was downright _embarrassing_ how chipper and naive he looked--but he knew his mother would grab him by the ear if she visited and found it missing.

In fact, he realized as he looked around the room, there was a lot of Easy Company in the house. His jacket, of course, with the Screaming Eagle visible on the shoulder, hung on the hook right beside the front door. He had a framed picture of the whole company—or at least all that could be reasonably gathered—right beside the mantelpiece, and one of him, Frank, Buck, Bill, Joe, and Malarkey on the coffee table. His fridge was covered in pictures, mostly of his two nephews and his niece, but in the corner was a photo of Frank and his boy that Frank had sent in his latest letter. It was from little Ricky’s fifth birthday party, so he was wearing his best clothes and absolutely covered in cake and grass stains; George grinned every time he looked at it, partially because Frank was in the picture, kneeling beside his son and smiling and holding him by the shoulders. It took a keen eye to see how carefully Frank was holding his body so that he wasn’t touching the mess, and George could only imagine how quickly he had tossed the boy into a bathtub.

There were more photographs, too, tucked in odd places. George sat for a moment, looking around him and drinking his beer, then sat up and started pulling open drawers in the coffee table. It was here somewhere—he was _sure_.... He flipped through a tall, tottering tower of photos for a moment, and then said “ha!” triumphantly as he found the one he was looking for.

It was a shot of him and Joe Toye in the Toccoa days, and he was pretty sure it was the only one he had of the two alone. Neither had their jump wings yet; Joe was still a private. In the picture, they had their arms around each other’s shoulders and a beer firmly in hand, with which they toasted the camera. Several more had already been consumed, if George recalled correctly. They had downed a few, and then Toye started singing—Bridget O’Flynn, maybe?—and George had joined in, because why not? He liked singing. He liked the song. He didn’t remember who had taken the picture, but he and Toye were both grinning as they made their toast, both trying to sing without moving their lips too much. They had been halfway through a verse.

George looked at the picture for a few minutes, a little lopsided smile on his face as he thought back on the absolute hell that was boot camp… and then the smile began to fade.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered. “Oh _fuck_.”

He stared at the picture in his hand, which was no longer a picture of one of his old army pals, but a picture of someone he had just slept with. With mounting horror, he looked at the photo of Easy Company on the wall. What the _hell_ had he been thinking?


	2. Chapter 2

“All right, George, I think that’s it,” Tommy said as he slammed the car door.

“Thank the good lord Jesus Christ,” George said dramatically, spreading his arms wide, and his brother rolled his eyes.

“Hey, you volunteered to help me.”

“Yeah, well FDR volunteered to help the Brits with a little Nazi problem and look how that ended up.”

“Boys, play nice,” Eileen chided them with a laugh. She rested a hand on Tommy’s arm and the two brothers conceded—although not without pulling a face over her head.

George liked Eileen. She and Tommy had married within five months of their meeting in 1944, which meant that George hadn’t been able to attend the wedding, but since then they had been on perfectly friendly terms. She was calm, sensible, and grounded—which was a rather rare thing in the Luz family, so she was a welcome addition. She was also about four months pregnant, which had sent the whole clan into a delighted frenzy of action and had finally spurred Tommy into proposing that they move back to West Warwick.

“Always, sis. Now _you_ ,” he proclaimed, snapping his fingers in his brother’s general direction, “you owe me food, you owe me a beer, you owe me a place to crash for the night before we head home.”

“There’s a diner around the corner and they have beer… and we were going to stay in Eileen’s brother’s guest room for the night. You’ve got the couch.”

“Sounds good to me,” George said. He locked the car, which was packed full of all the crap Tommy had accumulated during his four years in Philadelphia, and they started strolling down streets paved gold by the setting sun.

It was a gorgeous summer evening and he was in a good mood, so he kept up a steady stream of funny observations which made Eileen laugh and Tommy roll his eyes—none of his siblings appreciated his sense of humor the way they ought—and they walked into the diner down the street. George scanned the room casually as they entered, as he had been scanning every road he turned on. He kept half-expecting Joe Toye to just pop out of the crowd, scowling, with uncomfortable questions and accusations glittering in his eyes. This was, however, not the case, and he, Tommy slid into a booth and ordered dinner with no incident.

“I’m sorry my brother only has the one extra bed,” Eileen said when the waiter brought their food, propping her chin in her hand. “And of course usually I’d offer it to you, since you’re the guest, but—”

“That’s a joke, right?” George interrupted. “Eileen, come on. There’s two of you and one of me, in your condition there’s no way you’re getting anything _but_ the most comfortable bed you can get, and I slept in army barracks and foxholes for three years. If I have a pillow, I’m thrilled.”

“Speaking of which, don’t you have friends in Philly anyway?” Tommy asked around a mouthful of hamburger. Eileen leveled a look at his face and he very carefully swallowed before speaking again. “Last time you came down early to meet some guys from your unit. You stayed with one of them, right?”

“Yeah,” George said slowly. “I wouldn’t want to barge in on anyone, though.”

“That’s reasonable,” Eileen said at the same time as Tommy said, “That’s unlike you.”

“Ha ha. You know what—yeah, I guess I could drop you two off and then check in on the Easy boys. Ralph and Bill are married, but Joe or Babe might have a bed. I’ll see.”

He did his best to put it out of his mind for the rest of the meal, but forty minutes later George found himself standing outside Joe’s apartment building, staring at the door. He didn’t _have_ to go in, he reminded himself. He could find Babe. But he didn’t like this avoiding-people crap. It wasn’t his style; if there was something to be said, George Luz said it, and forget all the bullshit. He wasn’t going to avoid the entire state of Pennsylvania, or Easy Company events, or any of the rest of it just because he had made a dumb decision when he was intoxicated.

“Right,” he muttered. “Here we go.”

He walked into the building and glanced around for a moment to familiarize himself with the building’s layout. There was a lobby on the ground floor, and two doors on the left and right side that led to little private hallways, and a staircase in front of him. Joe’s apartment was on the first floor on the… left side. George walked on through and, taking a deep breath, knocked on the door.

There was a muffled response right away and he squared his shoulders as he waited for the door to open. Once it did, he was surprised at how—anticlimactic—it felt. Joe didn’t look furious to see him. He didn’t look relieved. He just looked kind of puzzled, and waited for George to speak.

“Hey, Joe.”

“Hey.”

“I, uh…” George scuffed the toe of his boots against the floor and shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought—thought I’d like to talk, if you don’t mind. I mean, hell, the least you could do is let me in from the cold,” he said with a grin, feigning a shiver in the eighty-degree air. Joe shook his head.

“Nah, I don’t mind.” He opened the door wider and walked into the kitchen—he was on crutches today—and George followed him in. “You want a beer?”

“Trying to get me drunk, Toye?” he asked, and to his utmost horror it came out flirtatious.

Joe glanced back over his shoulder and smirked—that little smirk he got whenever a replacement asked a stupid question.

“Do I need to?”

George cleared his throat.

“Beer is good, thanks.”

“All right.”

Joe took two bottles from the fridge and handed one over. They tapped them together automatically, with a muttered “three miles up,” and then Joe leaned against the kitchen counter, his eyes sharp and fixed on George’s face. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, he put the bottle down and folded his arms.

“So what’s going on?”

“My brother’s wife is having a baby in a couple of months. I’m just down here to help them move their stuff back up to Rhode Island.”

“Congrats.”

“Yeah. And while I was here I thought I should… Aw, Christ.” George set his beer on the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. “Listen,” he said frankly. “What happened last time—it just happened, right? It’s just a thing that happens. It doesn’t have to mean anything, it doesn’t have to change anything, it doesn’t have to make things weird. Right?”

“Right.”

For a moment George was startled. He hadn’t expected that to be so easy. He thought there would be more awkwardness, or maybe that he would get punched for even bringing it up, but Joe was still watching him, a grin on his face as he drank his beer.

“Good,” George said. “Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t fuck anything up.”

“You didn’t do anything. Neither of us did, really—like you said, it was just a thing that happened. And if it happens again, it’s just a thing that happens twice. No big deal.”

“Exactly!” he said, relief in his voice, as he tapped a bit of ash from his cigarette onto a conveniently located ash tray. Suddenly the words caught up to him and his fingers froze. There was a pause broken only by the bustle of the streets outside, and then a soft whoosh as George exhaled. “What?”

Joe ducked his head and laughed. It was a soft raspy laugh that made George’s heart race, especially when Joe looked up, his eyes sparkling, and approached him. He was slumped a little bit, putting weight on the crutches, and George was almost at his height. It was a silly detail to notice, but it distracted him from the sudden dryness in his throat. Joe stood close—very close, so close their foreheads were almost touching—and spoke softly.

“All of this could have been said over the phone. From Rhode Island.”

“I was helping my brother, Joe,” George said with mock seriousness.

“Yeah? Where is he?”

“Not here, thank God,” George said as he threw his arms around Joe’s neck.

\---

The second time was, unsurprisingly, better than the first. Drunken assignations had their appeal, of course, but George decided that with a guy like Joe, sobriety won out. They were able to get their clothes off faster and more efficiently, and yet had the patience to actually make it to a bed first, which was nice. And being sober meant he actually got to take in and savor all the glorious details. He spent at least twenty minutes dragging his hands and lips over Joe’s chest and the sensitive skin of his neck, committing every dip of muscle or hitch of breath to memory.

He also noticed for the first time that Joe was still in fresh-from-Toccoa shape; he certainly had the thighs of a man who had been running Currahee for months. This, George thought, was distinctly unfair. He had long accepted the fact that he himself would never be truly handsome, and he was comfortable with the fat that he had gained back in the past three years—it was inevitable, once his mother started cooking for him again—but someone as good-looking as Joe Toye shouldn’t be allowed to maintain peak physical condition as well. It made it far too difficult to keep composure when he dug his heel into the mattress, arched his back, and let his eyelids flutter as an orgasm wracked his body.

Afterwards they lay together on the bed, too lazy and satisfied to move, which was perfectly fine with George. He was more than happy to lie in a tangle of blankets with Joe and reflect on what had been a very well-spent hour or so—although, after a few minutes, silence lost its appeal.

“When did you know you were…” George began to ask, curiosity in his voice, before he trailed away at the warning look on Joe’s face. “Never mind.”

Joe regarded him for another moment, then and rolled over to pull a packet of smokes and a box of matches out of the nightstand. He lit one and waited, letting the puff of smoke dissipate before he spoke.

“I was seventeen.”

“Jesus, that’s young.”

“Yeah, well.” He was silent for a few moments and then, suddenly, he started chuckling. “I thought everybody was lying about how good sex was. Like it was some huge joke the world was playing on me. Then I thought, well shit, maybe it’s because I’m doing it with the wrong people. It scared me shitless.” He shrugged. “I got over it. What about you?”

George felt his cheeks grow hot, so he kept his eyes on the ceiling and tried to speak as nonchalantly as possible.

“I’m not saying it happened at Toccoa… but I’m not not saying that.”

“Really?” Joe said, and when George looked over his eyebrows were raised. “So I’m not the first.”

“No—I mean—nothing _happened_ at Toccoa. I just, you know, kind of always had had feelings but I didn’t know what they meant. Then at Toccoa I realized what they meant. Perfect fucking timing, too, because the last thing I needed was the army finding out… then I was on furlough in London once and met this guy who was 4F—or whatever their version of 4F is—and he took me to this homosexual bar. You ever been to a place like that?”

“No,” Joe said shortly. “You liked it there?” he asked, skepticism tugging at one eyebrow.

“It was—I dunno, it was different. I remember thinking I was kind of impressed at the guts it took for most guys to go there. I only went once ’cause I didn’t like being there in my uniform. Plus it was full of fucking limeys—I didn’t know what the hell they were saying half the time.”

Joe snorted obligingly. He handed over the packet of cigarettes and George took one. He sank down against the pillow—Joe’s mattress was harder than he would have liked, but the pillows were soft—and blew out a mouthful of smoke. It was a rich, familiar taste on his tongue, and on his right side he could feel the brush of Joe’s skin against his, the faint prickle of the hairs on his arm. He found that he liked it, the mix of sensations, and his mind drifted agreeably until Joe spoke again, and pulled him back.

“Fuck anybody you met there?” he asked abruptly.

“Hm? Oh—yeah. I was paranoid when we left the bar, must’ve looked over my shoulder fifty times, but after that I was 100% sure. And it’s weird because I still like girls plenty, but basically since then it’s been a clear-cut policy: chase the best-looking person in the room who doesn’t slap me. The worst day of my life was when I was on leave in Paris and couldn’t decide between a Gary Cooper and an Ava Gardner. Tragic.”

“Ava, always,” Joe said immediately. George raised an eyebrow.

“You just said sex with women was overrated.”

“I never had sex with Ava Gardner.”

“Oh, but you had a disappointing roll in the hay with Gary Cooper, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re ridiculous,” George laughed, and he leaned forward to plant a slow, indulgent kiss on Joe’s lips before he could pause to wonder if this was something they did. But Joe didn’t seem to mind; he kissed back for a moment, and then drew away to continue smoking. George lay down on his stomach and pillowed his head on his arms. “So, say I happen to be in Philly again soon.”

“Why?”

“Because… because Bill decides to make me godfather to Guarnere, Jr. Because I’m trying to get to Manhattan but I overshoot it. I don’t know. Say I end up in Philadelphia… do you think there’s a chance this _thing_ —which is in no way permanent and changes absolutely nothing between us or in our personal separate lives—might happen again?”

Joe stubbed out his cigarette and shrugged.

“Maybe.”

Then, casually, he moved closer and straddled George’s back. He spread his fingers over the smooth skin, cupped his shoulder blades, and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the nape of George’s neck.

“Maybe?” he repeated dubiously. Joe nipped at the lobe of his ear.

“Maybe.”

“This is happening again right now and you’re playing coy. Why do I even bother?”

Joe laughed and lifted his weight enough for him to grab George by the shoulder and turn him over. It was very pleasant, George thought dazedly, to be trapped by his arms on either side, especially when Joe leaned so close that he could feel the movement of his lips as he spoke….

“I think this still counts as one.”

“Nope. Separate orgasms count as separate times.”

“Who said anything about orgasms?” Joe muttered as he dragged his mouth down George’s chest.

“You’re a cruel, cruel man, Joe Toye,” George said, and he swallowed his laughter as his breath caught.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The internalized homophobia is a bit more prevalent in this chapter (and several of the chapters to follow). I won't linger on it, because that's no fun, but be warned that it does make an appearance.
> 
> (Also there is a mention of I'll Be Seeing You, which Stephen Ambrose mentions as one of Toye's favorite songs. It's also the inspiration for the title of this fic, and I personally love the Billie Holiday version the best, but unfortunately she might have been in jail/under house arrest during the period of time mentioned in the fic... and I'm not sure if Bing Crosby had given up touring to focus on his movie career by then. Anyway, point is, liberties were taken. I also want to reiterate the fact that, while I borrowed some details about the real George Luz and Joe Toye from sources besides the miniseries, this is _not_ based on the real figures, but on their fictional portrayals. I intentionally used only major details, such as Luz being the eldest of ten siblings, or Toye's insecurity about being from a working class family, that are broad enough to have been used by the actors or writers as inspiration in Band of Brothers.)
> 
> And now, after that much-longer-than-anticipated note, we move on to Chapter Three...

Somehow, without them ever actually discussing it, a pattern formed. They didn’t see each other very often—only once, _maybe_ twice a month. Usually Joe would call George, not for anything in particular, but to deliver news of the goings-on in Pennsylvania, maybe ask if he had heard anything from Perconte or Buck lately, just chat. Then, at some point in the call, there would be a pause. It varied in length depending on how impish George was feeling that day. He always knew what the pause meant, and sometimes he broke it right away, while other times he waited until Joe coughed awkwardly before taking pity on him and saying “Do you want me to come down this weekend?”

“Yes,” Joe would say, relief in his voice, or sometimes he would keep his composure and just say “Sure, if you want.”

George would head down on Friday afternoons, and pull in just in time for a late dinner or a beer—Bill, Ralph, and Babe were amused at how often he came down, but he blustered a bit about there being nothing to do in Rhode Island (not true, he thought privately each time, and vowed to get the boys up to Providence eventually), and no one he knew in New York City. Then he would go back to Joe’s place and they had sex, although he was usually too tired for anything more than a quick, lazy handjob before they fell asleep. Saturday mornings and evenings were for more energetic pursuits. Joe wasn’t big on anal—he thought it usually wasn’t worth the effort—but George was more than happy with hands, mouths, and a toned body pressing him against the bed. Or the floor. Whatever worked.

He generally spent the day enjoying everything that Philly had to offer. Sometimes he hung out with Joe or the other guys; he was particularly welcome at the Guarneres’ house, because little Anna absolutely adored him. Otherwise he found his own way, meeting people as he went. He liked it best when Joe joined him, though, because it had become apparent that Joe was not... well, _happy_. Sometimes George entered Joe’s apartment to find it messy and dark, all the blinds pulled down. There always seemed to be just a bit too much alcohol around, and Babe and Bill often looked over-happy to see them, as though Toye didn’t join them as often as he should. Joe rarely mentioned his family, and when he did, it was usually to rant about some disagreement he’d had with his father. And his job—well, he simply found it too boring to talk about at all. None of this was exactly surprising, seeing as Joe had lost a leg, abandoned his hopes of a military career, moved away from his family, left the town he grew up in, and gotten a lower-paying job since Bastogne. _Anyone_ would struggle with that. Still, George himself was quite happy with his home life, and he was determined to at least nudge Joe in the right direction, inasmuch as he could do that by telling corny jokes in a sunny Philadelphia park on a single Saturday.

It was while trying to accomplish this purpose that George realized he and Joe were not fucking. They were dating.

He didn’t fully comprehend this until months after they started seeing each other. It finally happened one chilly day in mid-March—the Saturday before Joe’s birthday, in fact. George had called to say that he couldn’t be down that Friday, but he was fine with coming down Saturday morning instead, if Joe wanted to do something for the special occasion. He was surprised by the enthusiasm with which Joe greeted this suggestion.

“Be here by four and wear a suit,” he said, and rang off.

And so, bemused, George made the drive from Rhode Island to Philadelphia in the suit he had worn to his sister’s wedding the month before, without any idea why. He pulled into the parking lot by Joe’s building and found Joe waiting for him there. It was like stepping back in time; he was wearing his service uniform. George hadn’t realized until that very moment how _tired_ Joe was nowadays. In that uniform, with its crisp lines and glittering buttons and pins (including quite a few citations, although Joe had evidently decided not to display his four Purple Hearts), he looked seven years younger and quite a bit happier. He looked damn good, too, but that was no surprise.

“Hel _lo_ , sergeant,” George said with a low whistle as he got out of the car. “Jesus, are we meeting the president?”

“Better.” Joe took two slips of paper out of his pocket and held them out for inspection. “My birthday present from Babe and Bill. We’re going to see Bing Crosby.”

“Holy shit,” George said, eyebrows raising as he looked at the tickets. “They must actually _like_ you, huh? Strange.”

“Yeah yeah, fuck you.”

“Hold on, the concert starts in… four hours. Why did you tell me to be here by four?”

“I thought we could do dinner first.”

George waited for further explanation, but none came. Joe was practically thrumming with excitement, and George only sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Okay yeah, sure, but dinner doesn’t take _four hours_ , Joe. So I’m going to go have a cup of coffee, take a shower, and maybe take a nap because why not, we have time, and _then_ we’re going to have dinner and go see Bing. All right? All right.”

The evening went as planned, except the nap which turned into blowjobs on the couch instead (and there was something _very nice_ , George found, with going to your knees in front of a man wearing sergeant’s chevrons), and they went to Pat’s King of Steaks for dinner after Joe expressed incredulity that George _still_ had never been. They got a few odd looks, dressed up as they were, but neither of them particularly gave a shit, and then at 7:49 they were sitting in a concert hall, waiting for the lights to dim.

“You know, Babe and Bill probably meant the extra ticket for a gal,” George commented idly.

“Yeah, as far as they know you’re not here. But, you know, I’m not seeing anyone in particular right now and I didn’t want to take a stranger. Might be someone who doesn’t like the music, someone it turns out I don’t like, someone who’s annoying and talks through the whole thing…”

“Joe, I’m annoying and I talk through everything.”

“True,” Joe said with a throaty chuckle, and he slung an arm around George’s shoulder. “But I know you’ll believe me when I say that if you say one word while the music’s playing, I’m going to choke you out.”

George nodded in perfect understanding as the concert began. It was a good concert—he could feel Joe’s excitement beside him like a faint buzz of electricity. And then, towards the end, the opening notes of _I’ll Be Seeing You_ came on and Joe just… sighed. It was a soft, utterly content sound that made George smile. He looked over, an indulgent grin playing on his lips, and realized, instantly, that this was a date. A rather romantic date, actually, with a man he had been in a relationship with for either ten or eight months, depending on how one measured it. Joe met his gaze and smiled, and George put this epiphany out of his mind. It was a nice song.

He worried about it on the drive back, but that was the nice thing about five-hour drives—by the end, he had reached a satisfactory conclusion. He was okay with dating Joe. He was a handsome man, he was generous, and he had a dry sense of humor that George liked very much. As long as he kept Joe from realizing what was happening, everything would be fine.

That, of course, was the key. If Joe realized a serious relationship was forming, there was no doubt in George’s mind that he would shut it down. Joe was still clinging to the idea that he could sleep with George and be straight; he never admitted that he was gay and he continued to keep George updated on the women he dated or slept with. Most lasted only one date, and the sex continued to be unexceptional, but that didn’t deter him. George, on the other hand, had stopped seeing other people, even casually, sometime in April 1949. His siblings teased him—especially recently-married Tommy and widowed Marlene, the two closest to him in age, who regarded his single status as personal failures—but he ignored them. He had very happily sown his wild oats when he returned from the war. Now he knew what he was looking for. He knew what he actually _wanted_ , and any choice he made would be a deliberate one. Sure, he had fallen in love with Joe accidentally, but each visit, each not-quite-acknowledged-date, each moment spent in bed was deliberate now.

He thought about that a lot, especially on Sundays. Sundays were almost always his last days in Philadelphia. He would wake up early and go to mass. Joe usually accompanied him, but with a guilty reluctance that meant he probably didn’t go unless someone else was with him. That, at first, felt strange, sitting in church with his homosexual lover, but George decided consciously to put it out of his mind. He liked going to church. He had always gone with his family, and (as the oldest) was usually in charge of making sure his siblings paid attention. It was a role he was destined to never, ever fulfill, but it made for fond memories. Sometimes he tried some of his church-distraction techniques on Joe, which usually earned him a smile and rolled eyes. Sometimes he thought of Muck and Penkala and was more solemn, and Joe almost always noticed; he would nudge George discreetly with his elbow and mutter “You okay?” or “Hang tough,” and that made him feel better.

After lunch on Sunday George drove home. That car ride was, almost always, the one where he doubted their relationship the most. Somewhere around his third cigarette he would sigh and rub his forehead and decide that it probably wasn’t worth it to make the trip again. But then he pulled into West Warwick and called Joe, just to let him know he had gotten back safe, and Joe said “Good,” in a soft affectionate voice, and any bullshit resolution George had made flew out the window.

\---

“Oh my god,” George panted. “Oh my—fuck, _yes_.”

His closed fist fell against the sheets with a thump and Joe sat up. He turned his head to the side and discreetly spat out a mouthful of white, and tugged himself up to the head of the bed. There was a rather smug grin on his face, and George chuckled.

“Aren’t you pleased with yourself?”

“A bit, yeah.” He pulled a face and rolled over on his back. “I’m never going to get over that taste, though. Appreciate it.”

“I do, I do. Here, you want a smoke?”

“Yeah.” Joe hesitated for a moment, then pushed himself onto his side and leaned down, his lips a scant centimeter above George’s. “Kiss me.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” George muttered, and he tilted his chin up.

He had never really been a huge fan of kissing—and least not long, deep, unending kisses like this, which tended to make his thoughts wander more often than not. George was a firm believer in the quick kiss, the peck, the swoop-in-and-away, the flirtatious bite, even. But kissing Joe was something else, because he gave it his all. He demanded full attention, and under such circumstances Luz was happy to comply.

After a few moments Joe pulled away, a crooked smile on his lips, and George grinned.

“Some people won’t do that, you know,” Joe said as he flopped back against the pillows. “Kiss after going down on someone.”

“Yeah?” George said nonchalantly, not particularly paying attention, and he picked his jacket off the floor and starting digging in the pockets, trying to find his cigarettes.

“Yeah. This broad I slept with yesterday, she gave me a blowjob and I tried to kiss her after, and Jesus, you would’ve thought I was asking her to blow the Pope.”

George’s hands froze and he let the jacket slip to the floor as he turned around. Joe was still smiling, his eyes closed.

“Yesterday?” George repeated blankly. “ _Yesterday?_ ”

“Yeah, I went to this bar and—what’s the problem?”

“Nothing, it’s—you _knew_ I was coming here yesterday!” George blurted out. He could hear the resentment in his own voice and he almost regretted it, but still… that stung. For months he had been working under the assumption that Joe at least liked him. More than other people. That he was somehow _special_. And now—was he just another in a long line of distractions? “You invited me!”

For half a second he thought he saw Joe wince, but the moment passed and Joe was sitting up, his eyes steady and calm and unrepentant.

“Luz—”

“No, fuck this. I’m going home.”

George got out of bed and started throwing on his clothes. He didn’t bother with anything finicky—forget socks, forget underwear—he just wanted to get out as soon as possible. His wallet fell out of his pants pocket and there was an embarrassing moment when he tried to pick up his driver’s license and fit a few bills back into place, all while stubbornly pretending that he couldn’t hear Joe trying to placate him. He shoved his feet in his shoes and left the apartment, leaving everything behind except the clothes on his back and his car keys. Joe didn’t follow him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he swore as he slammed the car door shut. “Fuck shit _fuck_.”

He leaned his elbows against the steering wheel, trying both to calm himself down and figure out why he was so irrationally angry. It wasn’t as if this was the first woman Joe had slept with since they were together. It wasn’t as if this was the first time George had heard about it. It wasn’t even as if she was anyone special! She wouldn’t see Joe again, she wouldn’t marry him, she wouldn’t get drunk with him late at night and listen when he said things like “sometimes I wish that round had just hit me head-on,” and kiss him through her own terror and, somehow, still find a way to make him laugh… but still it hurt. It hurt.

 _Fuck this_ , he thought briskly, _breathing isn’t doing shit_ , and with a sudden business-like attitude he sat up, stuck a cigarette in his mouth and put his keys in the ignition. He didn’t turn it over, though, because first he had to get out his lighter. And then he had to wait for the soothing smoke to calm the heat of his anger. And then he finished his smoke and had to have another.

George had been sitting in his car, smoking and waiting, for almost fifteen minutes when there was a knock on the driver’s side window.

“George, come on.” Beat. “Come back inside. Please.”

With a sigh, George stubbed out his cigarette and got out of the car. Grey smoke billowed out into the inky late-summer sky, and he deliberately didn’t look at Joe as he walked back into the apartment building. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder until he was standing in Joe’s apartment and heard the door quietly shut behind him. He barely had a chance to even fix his eyes on Joe’s face, though, before the other man was stepping forward and slowly, deliberately, wrapping both arms around his waist.

George stared straight ahead and Joe softly kissed his neck. There were a few minutes—long, peaceful minutes—where they just stood there, and after a while George had to admit that his anger has dissipated like smoke carried away on the autumn winds. He wasn’t an angry person. He didn’t _like_ being angry. And he knew, without needing to be told, that Joe didn’t like being afraid. George rested one hand on top of Joe’s arm and leaned back, just slightly, against his chest, and they stood like that for a long time. Joe kept kissing his neck, with a tenderness that was unexpected and vaguely unsettling. George almost felt embarrassed. He knew Joe—had known him for years. He should know, better than other people, how Joe expressed attachment, and this was it. Monogamy they couldn’t do. Conversations were not their strong suit. This, Joe could do. This, they were good at.

“You want to go to a movie or something?” Joe asked finally, his normally quiet voice even quieter in the stuffy silence of the apartment.

“Sure, Joe.”

So they went to see a movie. George didn’t know what it was they were seeing, but evidently it wasn’t a popular picture, because the only other people in the theater was a young couple—late teens, early twenties, maybe—who sat in the back and started giggling the moment the lights dimmed. George and Joe were sitting in the front, because the latter’s prosthetic was giving him a bit of a hassle and he didn’t want to climb steps, and they exchanged an exasperated glance the second the giggling started.

Sure enough, within five minutes the relative quiet of the theater was interrupted by wet sucking sounds—”oh my god,” Joe griped—along with whispered or not-quite-whispered terms of endearment and more infernal giggling. Joe stubbornly kept his eyes on the movie screen. Twenty minutes in, George started coughing pointedly.

“Gee, I love not actually hearing the movie I paid to see,” he said in a carrying voice. “Don’t you think so, Joe?”

“Hm,” Joe grunted.

No change.

George coughed again.

The girl let out a sudden shriek of laughter and was ineffectively hushed by her boyfriend.

Joe ground his teeth.

Soft moans began to accompany the kissing sounds.

George coughed, louder, for a third time.

“That’s _enough_ ,” Joe finally snapped, whirling around in his seat. “Either shut the fuck up or get the fuck out.”

George turned around with a hoot of laughter, which was hard to swallow when he saw the couple in the corner separate from each other, like a ball of bread dough being slowly torn in two pieces.

“Hey, buddy—” the boy said in a show of bravado.

“Did you just call me _buddy_ ,” Joe repeated in a deadpan voice, and George couldn’t actually see the way the boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously but he could picture it well enough.

The two lovebirds muttered together for a moment and then, with utmost dignity, stood and walked out of the theater.

“Finally. Now…” George drawled, slinking an arm around Joe’s shoulders. Joe snorted and shoved him off.

“Don’t even think about it.”

They turned back to the movie. After ten minutes, long enough to be reasonably sure that the young couple wasn’t preparing to storm back in with a manager to have them kicked out, Joe reached up casually, without any hesitation that might draw attention to his action, and covered George’s hand with his own.


	4. Chapter 4

The phone was mocking him. George sat at his kitchen table and stared at the phone, his fingers drumming against his knee. He had already cleaned the dishes, and he didn’t have anything else to do tonight—he had joined a bowling league that usually met on Fridays, but three of the other four guys he played with had rudely caught the flu this week. There was no reason to _avoid_ making the call, really. There was no compelling reason to _make_ it either, but still, the way the phone sat neatly in its cradle was like a challenge. He just wanted to talk to a friend, that was all. He wanted to talk to a friend and get advice about his love life. That was normal.

“Jesus frigging Christ,” he muttered to himself, and he snatched the phone off the wall and dialed a number from memory.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Perco, how’s it going?”

“George Luz. You know, every time I think I’m going to get some peace, you pop up again.”

“Don’t be cruel, darling,” George said deadpan, without a moment’s pause. “Frank, listen, I need some romance advice, okay? I’ve been thinking this over for a while, and I decided, you know who I really need to talk to? The genius who married a woman after two and a half months, just before he went off to war.”

“You mean the genius still married to that same woman?”

“Bingo.”

“All right, Luz, what’s the problem?”

George took a moment to formulate his thoughts and spoke slowly. He trusted Frank, he really did, and if they lived in the same city and could meet up for a beer and a nice long chat, maybe he would test out the full story on him. But they weren’t, and so he was determined to keep the whole _by the way, I fuck guys_ thing under wraps. It just wasn’t a telephone kind of conversation.

Once he was sure his pronouns were all in order, he started talking.

“Basically, there’s this girl—hands down the most selfless, brave, loyal person I’ve ever met—seriously, Frank, I’m in trouble over here. We’ve been seeing each other for a while but I can’t, you know, get it into her head that I’m in this for the long haul.”

“You done the dirty yet?” Frank asked promptly.

“First of all yeah, and second of all ‘the dirty’? Are we twelve year old schoolgirls?”

“Hey screw you, man, I’ve got kids in the house. Is she screwing other guys?”

George paused before answering.

“Yeah, but—”

“Bad news, buddy. Drop it.”

“But none of them more than once. I know for a fact she hasn’t gone on more than a couple of dates with anyone but me. And the reason she won’t really commit is because she thinks we don’t—fit. Other people would find it strange, that’s her main worry. It’s not that she doesn’t _like_ me.”

“Because why wouldn’t anyone like you, right?” Frank snarked, although there was warmth in his voice. George grinned and leaned back in his chair.

“Right.”

There was a pause—not an uncomfortable one, but George could almost hear Perconte thinking over the phone. Then a gush of static filled his ear as Frank sighed.

“You’re not gonna like this, Luz. Listen, just because she likes you or loves you or whatever, it doesn’t mean she has to be with you. You know? You can’t just throw cigarettes and chocolate at someone until they want you.”

“Are you ever going to stop bringing that up?” George joked weakly. A tiny hole on the knee of his pants caught his eye and he began to poke at it, fingers toyed with the frayed edges.

“You get what I mean, though, right? My advice is—cool it for a while. Stay away from her for a week or two and see how you feel. See how she feels. If she keeps seeing other guys, if she doesn’t try to call you, if she’s not excited to see you… then that’s it. If she reacts differently, then you just flat-out ask her if she’s willing to be serious or not.”

“And if she says no?” George asked, swallowing thickly.

“Then—then you come to Chicago and I’ll go get drunk with you.”

“Fuck that, I’ve been travelling too much lately,” he said. He cleared his throat. “If she’s through with me, you’re coming to Rhode Island.”

“Okay, George.”

\---

“Hey, Luz. How’s it going?”

“Good. You?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I um, I know you were just down here but—do you want to come down this weekend?”

“No, I… thanks for the offer, Joe, but not this weekend. I haven’t been spending much time with my family, and I’d like to see them this weekend.”

“Oh. Yeah, good. Sounds good.”

“Unless you really wanted me to come…”

“I just made an offer, George. You don’t have to take it.”

“Go get Babe and steal Bill away from Fran. I know it’ll be hard to have fun without me, but if you all try your hardest, maybe you’ll manage.”

“Maybe. Okay, well, I’ve got to go. Have a good week.”

“You too.”

\---

He successfully managed to get through the rest of the week, and then the whole weekend, without jumping in his car and driving to Philadelphia, or even pick up the phone. George was proud of himself for that. He spent Saturday with Tommy and Eileen, and then all of Sunday with his parents—church, then doing chores around the house, then sitting down for a family dinner. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done a hundred times, but it was nice.

Around nine o’clock that night, he called Babe.

“Good to hear from you,” Babe said cheerfully. “It’s been a while since you were over here, huh? At _least_ two days,” he teased.

“Ha ha, you’re goddamn hilarious, Heffron. What’ve you been up to?”

“Today? Played a game of pick-up football with my brothers. They kicked my ass. I swear to God they’ve each grown a foot and a half in the last four years.”

“Well you _would_ think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Fuck you, Luz,” Babe chuckled. “How about you?”

“Oh you know, the usual. Indentured servitude at my parents’. Nothing exciting. I heard you and Toye were planning a wild night on the town this weekend,” he said, feigning casualness. George stuck a cigarette in his mouth and fumbled with his lighter for a moment. He had decided, at the last minute, that if Babe was going to tell him about him and Toye each taking home a couple of blonde bombshells, he really didn’t want to hear about it without a cigarette or a drink—and some wise part of his brain realized that getting drunk on a Sunday night wasn’t the way to go. “How’d that go?”

“It didn’t—and if we had plans, it’s news to me. Joe had a bit of a fall last Tuesday, when he was on his way to work. He sprained his ankle.”

The cigarette slipped out of his mouth.

“Shit! Is he okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, he’ll be fine. Just, you know, when you’ve only got one, it makes things difficult. He couldn’t walk for a few days. We tried to check in on him at least once a day. Me and Fran and Bill, and Spina dropped by once too.”

“Shit,” George repeated. He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair, trying to imagine how a guy like Joe would enjoy a week of immobility and loneliness. Not very much. “Bet he _loved_ that.”

“Yeah, well, you know Joe, he don’t complain. Doc says he’ll be fine, though. He’s going back to work tomorrow.”

“Good. Good.”

There was an awkward silence as he tried to gather his thoughts, and then he cleared his throat and changed the subject. The call didn’t last long; George liked Babe, really he did, and he liked hearing from him, but he couldn’t shake his mind of the fact that Joe had called him on Tuesday night, hours after getting injured, and hadn’t said a word.

\---

“I talked to Babe.”

“Okay.”

“He told me you’ve been stuck in bed for a week. If you had told me you wanted my help—”

“I didn’t want your help. I’m fine, George. I just wanted to see you.”

“Did you—you weren’t alone all week, were you?”

“I had babysitters every day.”

“But for how long?”

“An hour or two. Christ, Luz, I’m not going to start weeping because I’m left on my own for a day!”

“Right. Sorry. What about your family?”

“Maggie’s eight months pregnant and Eleanor was busy. I didn’t want to bother them.”

“Joe, one of these days someone is going to walk into your apartment and find you dead, you know that right? You’re going to stub your toe and get an infection and die a slow, painful death because you’re too goddamn hard-headed to ask for help. I’m coming down this Friday.”

“You don’t have—”

“I didn’t say I had to, I said I was doing it. See you Friday.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Jesus,” George muttered, his eyes widening as he entered Joe’s apartment. “What the hell happened here?”

“Hurricane Fran happened,” Joe grimaced.

“Hurricane? Joe, this is the first time I’ve ever walked into your apartment and not wanted to shoot myself. Jesus _Christ_.”

George had met Fran, of course, so he wasn’t entirely surprised. Trying to oppose her was quite a lot like attempting to withstand a force of nature—she was, after all, Wild Bill’s wife. And she had done quite a number on Joe’s apartment in the past two weeks.

The spare blanket was draped over the couch, and all the pillows had new covers—beer stains obscured by fresh white cloth and red embroidered flowers. The curtains were drawn back to the late afternoon light stream into the room, and they too had been altered. They were still grey, but they had been cut shorter and trimmed in red. Definitely less gloomy. The entire place had been given a thorough scrubbing until even the ceiling gleamed, and—though Joe had never been the really messy type—everything had been neatened, and furniture rearranged. There was even a vase of flowers on the kitchen table, although they were wilting and brown around the edges.

The biggest change was in the kitchen. Without even opening the fridge or any cabinets, George could tell it had been thoroughly stocked. He spotted fresh fruit, homemade bread, leftover cakes and tins of cookies, a modest amount of actually decent alcohol (mostly wine), and the remains of three casseroles. He guessed that the entire combined Guarnere-Heffron clan had taken it upon themselves to supplement Joe’s rather Spartan diet, and the thought made him smile. This had been a carefully planned attack—not even Bill could pull this off in the span of a few days. More than likely, he and Babe had been plotting ways to improve on Joe’s reclusive bachelor lifestyle, and had only required opportunity. All it had taken was Joe’s complete immobility. Piece of cake.

“Well at least I know you didn’t starve,” George muttered.

“Tell me about it.”

“I still wish you’d told me you’d fell,” he said reproachfully. He couldn’t help it; it had been bugging him for days. Joe had called him on Tuesday, hours after he had sprained his ankle, and deliberately withheld that fact from him. Sure, George was no Doc Roe—there wasn’t a whole lot he could have actually _done_ for Joe. But he could have called, at least. Kept his spirits up. He was good at dealing with bedridden people, especially people like Toye or Lipton, who regarded each moment of inactivity as both selfishness and a personal failure of will.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Joe said impatiently as he tossed George’s overnight bag onto the couch. “But you’re here now. Earlier than usual, too.”

“Yeah, I thought we could grab dinner and drinks with Babe and Bill.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Joe said firmly. He came over and started undressing George in a brisk, efficient manner. “There’s dinner here, there’s drinks here, and I’ve seen Babe and Bill enough these past two weeks, not to mention all their families. All I’ve done this past week is see Babe and Bill, and sleep. I don’t plan on doing either tonight.”

Having wrested George of his jacket and shirt, he suddenly dropped to the ground, and George winced at the loud _thunk_ Joe’s knee made as it hit the floor.

“Fucking hell, will you be careful with that?”

“George,” Joe began, exasperated, as he began to attack his shoelaces.

“No, I’m serious, it would serve you right if you landed yourself in bed for another week.”

“George—”

“You need to take care of yourself, Joe.”

“George,” Joe repeated for the third time. He had slipped off George’s shoes and his hands rested on George’s belt buckle. Their eyes met. Joe’s voice was calm and quiet. “How many times do you think you can come tonight?”

George swallowed.

“I don’t know.”

“Want to find out?”

“Hell yes.”

\---

It was hard to keep a grin off his face hours later, when he and Joe were sitting on the couch with their third and second grilled cheese sandwiches, respectively, and a bottle of red wine on the floor between them. Joe was leaning comfortably against his shoulder, and the radio was on softly in the background. This was them at their best—casual, easy, unhurried. He loved them like this.

“I’m sorry about last time,” Joe mumbled suddenly.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I was a jackass.”

“Yeah,” George conceded with a grin. Joe cocked an eyebrow and elbowed him roughly in the side, and George shoved him back.

“I just—you know, I got drunk and went to a bar. It was nothing. I didn’t think anything of it… it’s not like this is anything serious,” he said with a shrug.

“Okay, Joe,” George snorted.

He took an enormous bite of his sandwich, and only realized that he may have overstepped this invisible line of theirs when Joe, in the middle of taking a sip of wine, froze. _There it goes_ , he thought. He could almost see the thought blooming in Joe’s mind, followed closely by shock, terror, and a heady mixture of anger and denial. _I need to be more drunk for this_ , he decided, handily ignoring the fact that the fourth glass of wine was probably what had got him in trouble in the first place, and took a swig straight from the bottle. They were down to the last mouthful, anyway.

“What was that?”

“Come on, man, you know what I mean. This thing, whatever you want to call it, it’s been serious for a while. Hell, when was the last time you had a relationship that lasted a year and a half? Because we’re coming up on that.”

“Relationship?” Joe repeated disdainfully, and George’s heart began to pound. “Man, you’re fucking nuts. This isn’t—this is sex, okay? It’s not a _relationship_.”

“Right, right. And when we go to movies and concerts those aren’t dates, and I’m not the only one you fucking talk to—”

“Because I thought we were _pals_ , Luz. Fucking Christ, I can’t shoot the shit with you without it being a whole thing just because we’re fucking on the side? Fine, then, forget the sex, it’s over.” He stood, knocking his plate to the ground, and turned away, and George’s blood was boiling.

“No, it’s not,” he snapped, rising. “It’s not over just because you’re being a fucking coward—”

“ _Coward_?”

“—who won’t see the truth! Be honest with yourself for one goddamn minute, Joe, and tell me if you really treat me just like Babe and Bill except for the sex. Huh? Do you call them in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep, because you have a nightmare or because you miss them? Not that you’d ever _say_ it because God fucking forbid someone might know you’re queer—”

 _Luz, you need to stop running your mouth_ , a tiny voice whispered in his ear as Joe’s eyes widened in fear. Then his eyebrows knotted and he strode forward angrily, and George didn’t care. His blood was up, his patience was gone, he wanted to keep talking—to fight—he wanted to make Joe _see_ —

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” Joe said, clutching the front of George’s shirt. His voice was a low, dangerous snarl. “Just because you’re…” He shook his head and gave a short, derisive laugh that sent shooting pains through George’s heart. “I dunno, sick, delusional enough to make this out to be some kind of thing—it doesn’t say shit about me. That’s on you. It’s not about me, and I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t owe you _anything_ , Luz. Not a damn thing. Now get out.”

\---

It was a cold night. September was rapidly fading, and autumn’s bite was in the wind. At first, George left the car window down as he raced through the Philadelphia streets because the cold made him feel good—sharp, like his anger actually meant something, like he could hold onto it. But within ten blocks he found himself slowing down and then finally he pulled the car against the curb and sat there, unmoving, as the cold began to creep into his bones. He lit a cigarette and stared out the windshield.

It couldn’t end like this. The words sunk like a stone in his gut and he breathed deeply and steadily, trying to reassure himself. It _wouldn’t_ end like this. Morning would come, and they would both be sober and they would reflect on what they had said, and one or both of them would apologize. _Both of them_ , he told himself sternly. He wasn’t going to spend another fucking five-hour drive back to Rhode Island worrying himself to death over the fact that Joe Toye didn’t give a shit about him. No. Joe would apologize and they would talk about it and make up and the elephant in the goddamn room would be given a name. They would fix themselves and be happy.

 _But what if we don’t?_ that traitorous voice whispered again, and George threw the car in drive as tears pricked at the corner of his eyelids. None of that, he told himself sternly as he cleared his throat. He just needed a place to stay until the morning. He would go to Babe’s. Sure, it was a bit late to be making house calls, but tough shit.

“You look like crap,” Babe greeted him at the door.

“Cheers, Heffron,” George said, patting his shoulder as he pushed into the apartment. “Got an empty couch for me?”

“I can do you one better—there’s a bed through that door over there. My brother-in-law sleeps there when Kate’s pissed at him. But hold on, you’re fucking freezing. You want hot chocolate or coffee?”

“Coffee would be great,” George admitted, and Babe shoved him in the direction of the kitchen table as he went to put on a pot.

George sat down and fumbled in his pockets for packet of cigarettes. He took one for himself and placed the other in front of Babe’s seat, and mutely accepted a cup of coffee when it was placed in front of him.

“So what happened?” Babe asked. He held a hand out for the lighter, and George handed it to him without really thinking about it. His hand shook, very slightly, as he light the cigarette and held it to his lips, but he rested it on the table and waited a few seconds for the tremors to subside, and took a deep drag without mentioning it.

“Nothing.”

“Bet I can guess.”

George laughed at that, and leaned back in his chair.

“Bet what?” he asked with a sour grin tugging at his mouth.

“Pack of smokes. No, two packs. And if I guess right, you tell me the whole story. Wrong, I stop asking.”

He shrugged and gestured for Babe to continue.

“Go ahead. You’re not going to guess.”

“You and Joe Toye had a fight.”

George’s jaw dropped, at the words and the utter _certainty_ with which Babe uttered them, and then clamped tight, so his cigarette didn’t fall to the ground, though it did bounce wildly and he reached up to take it from his mouth.

“How the hell did you know that?” he demanded. Babe flashed a little self-satisfied smirk and tapped the table.

“It helps that I know everyone you know in Philly—” he began.

“I have other friends,” George snapped irritably. “People like me, I know people, I could have other friends in Philly.

“And there’s only three reasons you’d be out of a place at this time of night,” Babe continued, without acknowledging him in the slightest. “Kicked out for being drunk or some shit—you know, puke all over a guy’s living room and he’s probably not gonna be too fond of you—but you’re too sober for that. Or some kind of emergency, like somebody had a heart attack or there was a fire or whatever, but if you were staying with somebody I knew and that happened you’d tell me right away. Or…”

He hesitated, glancing off to the side, and George frowned.

“Or what?”                                                                              

“Aw, Christ, Luz—because you had a fight with somebody you’d been fucking.”

The radiator gave off a tiny rattling sound from the living room, and somewhere in the distance George could hear the clattering of a train over the tracks, but other than that there was dead silence. He stared at Babe in mute shock, and Babe fidgeted. He had always had a kind of boyish look that, somehow, never went away in the war. He was tough, all right, and sometimes shockingly astute, but now he sat kind of hunched over, and peered up at George with nervous eyes and a quizzical quirk in his eyebrows, exactly like a schoolboy trying to assess how a particularly strict nun was feeling that day. In the shadows of the kitchen his hair looked dark and dull, brown, except for where the yellowish light brought out speckles of red.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” George asked stupidly after a moment. He had the vague idea that he might, conceivably, deny it—Babe’s face at the moment was hardly confident, and he might willingly pretend to be persuaded that he had made a mistake—but his curiosity killed him. “How—how—”

“How would I _not_?” With this one-word confirmation, Babe’s confidence was restored, and his posture straightened. He gestured as he spoke, sending the smoke from his cigarette in dazzling spirals around the room, and his voice took on the tone of a gleeful gossip. Bill, Luz knew, had always been extremely fond of gossip, and clearly he had been a bad influence. “I mean goddamn, Luz, you’re in Philly _all the fucking time_. And God help us if one of the fellas takes you to a bar or something before you’ve had a proper chance to jump him—do you have any idea the way you _look_ at him? Not to mention Joe. See, the problem is, he don’t talk as much as you do, so whenever you call him you stuff his head with too many thoughts, and then for days afterwards every other sentence starts with ‘Luz says this’ and ‘Luz thinks that.’ Drives Bill _nuts_.”

“Oh fuck,” George said through numb lips, and he rubbed the heel of his palm into his forehead anxiously. “Oh _fuck_. Does Bill—”

“Bill don’t know,” Babe said quietly. “I don’t think… well. He knows the two of you are close, is all, but that’s not exactly the kind of conclusion Bill jumps to, you know?”

“But you do?” George asked, mostly as a joke. Babe glanced up at him and smiled faintly. “Christ on a goddamn cracker, Babe, I wouldn’t’ve guessed.”

“Yeah, yeah. I always did act it pretty well, huh? Bill tries to set me up with broads all the fucking time, but I’ve done a real good job of getting dumped early and moping around for a few months. I’ve had lots of practice, see, given how goddamn _miserable_ I was when Doris dropped me.”

His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and George was easily able to recall that night in the bar, Bill doing his best to send the recruits into a state of awe, Babe going still and silent at the mention of a letter, and then braying laughter leading the quieter volley of chuckles at the end of the story. (He owed Babe two packs of cigarettes, he realized suddenly, and hoped that he would forget.)

“Yeah, you did pretty good. Why’d she end it, anyway? Find out or something?”

“Find out?” Babe laughed. “She knew before I did. Hell, the whole reason we started dating is ’cause she was tired of going out with boys who tried to stick their hand up her skirts; when I was deployed, she found a girl who was willing to do it instead and sent me a letter saying thanks for the help but everything’s fine now, and that was that. Nah, Doris was a great gal. Still is, we see each other pretty often. But hell, I’m getting off topic. Give me my smokes and cough up the story.”

Reluctantly, George handed over the one pack he had on hand, but it didn’t much matter. He and Babe ended up sitting at that kitchen table, knocking back first coffee and then coffee laced liberally with whisky, and chain-smoking cigarettes, for three and a half hours, maybe more, until the kitchen was lit with the fuzzy yellow glow of mornings in the city. George was surprised, when he looked up and saw the sun, though he probably shouldn’t have been. Talking was, after all, what he did best, and he had been _not_ talking about this for a long time. He started off with the basics about how they started, but then he found himself halfway through and decided that he needed to go into detail about their first night together. And then he was telling the whole story, from the beginning, and including more and more details (including, as the whisky-to-coffee ratio increased, rather scandalous ones), and Babe listened intently the entire time.

It felt good to talk about it, George realized as he trailed into silence and stared out at the rising sun. It felt good to linger on Joe’s best qualities and see that small congratulatory smile on a friend’s face, or to complain somewhat bitterly of the bad moments and _finally_ earn some goddamn sympathy for them.

“Damn,” Babe said finally, when George’s story ended with ‘and then I came here.’ “ _Damn_.”

“Yeah.”

“What the _hell_ are you going to do?”

“I was looking for some advice, genius.”

“What the hell am I supposed to say? You’re in love with Joe fucking Toye. He fucked up, you fucked up, I don’t— _shit_.” He stubbed his cigarette out and snorted. “Bill is going to flip a shit.”

“Bill isn’t going to find out,” George said severely. “I mean it, Babe—I don’t give a damn if he’s your best friend, you are _not_ going to tell him.”

“Me? No. But he’s going to find out somehow. This kind of thing, it don’t keep quiet easily. Especially because it’s such an Easy thing—everyone in the whole damn company always knows everyone’s business. You’d think the distance would make things better now, but it really doesn’t. There’s three of us in on it now, and I’ll bet you anything Malarkey’s at least noticed how Toye’s changed—that makes four.”

“Five,” George said, his heart sinking. “I asked Frank for advice. He doesn’t know who I was talking about, but he knows part of it.”

“Five. Eventually everyone’s going to know.”

“Eventually… that’ll only happen if it lasts long enough,” George said gloomily. Babe leaned over and smacked his forehead.

“Hey, none of that. It’s going to last. Come on, between the two of us we know Joe back and front. We just need a plan of attack to make him stop being an idiot.”

“Don’t we need an officer for that?” George joked. It was a weak one and he knew it, but Babe pretended to laugh and raised his eyebrows.

“You want I should call Major Winters?”

“Maybe not.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, warning for (fairly mild) internalized homophobia in this chapter. Also fun fact: this is actually the first scene I wrote for this fic.

It was almost evening by the time George found himself standing in front of Joe’s door, his heart pounding. He had slept for a few hours at Babe’s, and it was _extremely_ tempting to go back and sleep for a few more—but that wasn’t like him. Luz tended to let things boil underneath for a while, but once they boiled over he liked to address them. Clear everything away. He rapped his knuckles on the door and heard a muffled word that might have been “come in,” and took a deep breath as he stepped into the apartment.

Joe looked up at him with dark, mopey, basset hound eyes, and George sighed as his planned opening vanished in the wind.

“You’re drunk, Joe.”

Joe was half-collapsed against the arm of the couch, and he looked himself up and down for a moment before decisively shaking his head.

“Nah.”

“Yeah.”

“Only a little bit. C’mere.” Joe sat up and gestured for him to approach, and when George was close enough he reached up and pulled him down by the collar of his shirt. He tasted like whiskey and, faintly, maraschino cherries. Joe hated sweet liquors but he loved maraschino cherries, and they were his favorite snack when he was drunk. He would hold them just behind his front teeth and suck the juice from them before biting down. When George pulled away, he saw the tell-tale stain on his lips. “’M sorry. Christ, _I’m sorry_ , okay? I don’t know what to do.”

“We can’t keep going like this,” George agreed.

He flopped on the couch and sighed, ruffling his hair in agitation. Talking to Babe had been nice, but now he realized that it hadn’t actually _helped_ very much. There was little they could come up with without factoring in how Joe felt—and sometimes it was very difficult to know how Joe felt.

“Don’t—don’t go, George. Please. I can’t—you’re the only one who smiles at me. It’s true,” he insisted when George looked at him dubiously, wondering if this might be a better conversation to have when both parties were completely sober. “I’m not a fucking idiot, okay, I see the way people look at me. They see me and go ‘there’s Toye, that useless mick who’s lost half his savings and his fucking leg and probably his job, drinking himself into the ground.’ And I feel like the more people think it, the more true it is. But _you_. You look at me and you… smile,” he concluded weakly. He rested three fingers low on George’s cheek, and his voice was quieter than usual, and coarse, like the scrape of stubble against smooth skin. “I love your smile.”

There was a long pause. Joe looked away.

“I’m on my own too much,” he confessed with a sigh. “Everybody keeps telling me I should get a girl—my dad, Bill, the guys at work—but if I did I’d chase you away and… Christ, I don’t know. Sometimes I want to, you know? I should. But I _can’t_. I’ve tried and it’s so goddamn hard… Don thinks I should stop trying.”

“Don?” George interrupted quizzically. “Don—Malarkey? Jesus Christ, _you told Malarkey_?”

“I tell Malarkey everything,” Joe commented absently, and though it was probably true, it was still surprising to hear. Joe didn’t like to be dependent on people, and when he was, he didn’t like to admit it. “He’s known since Holland, I think. No, France, right after Holland.”

“The _fuck_?” he interrupted in a numb kind of way. He ran his hand over his face as though he could wipe the night away, forget all this confusing shit and go back to a month ago when things made sense. Five people knew now, he thought grimly, remembering what Babe had said. “What the fuck does France have to do with anything?”

“That was when I told him. Not about—he knew _that_ since Aldbourne—but about you. We were drunk—you ever seen Malarkey drunk? It’s funny. He got all giggly and shit, real happy. He tried to kiss me, just, you know, as a joke, and I told him no, and he asked if I would with anyone in Easy. I said no, but he was kind of pushy so I thought of you. Shit, I’d thought about kissing you before, but that was the first time I ever admitted it.”

 _Fort Benning_ , George thought, remembering Joe’s grip on his tie and the low swooping thrill in his stomach and the smell of beer in the air between them. Yes, he’d thought of it, too, but he hadn’t admitted it to anyone until that dark night in a Philadelphia bar.

“Malarkey thinks I’m treating you like shit,” Joe continued miserably. “I really don’t mean to, you know. I’m fucking—I’m sorry. This is a fucking mess. I don’t even know what this _is_.”

George shuffled closer and put his arms around Joe with a gusty sigh. They didn’t sit like this often—at least not fully clothed—but the other man relaxed against him.

“It’s okay, Joe. It’s okay. We’ll—we’ll figure this out, okay? Last night…” he hesitated. “Shit, last night we both said some shitty things. And some fucking stupid ones, too. You’re not a coward, you’re one of the bravest fuckers I know. And… I’m sick of this, Joe, I really am, I’m sick of feeling like a chump and sick of seeing you miserable, but I’m not sick of _you_. I couldn’t be.”

“Okay. So—so what do you _want_?”

The answer, he thought, was blindingly obvious, and George couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake—”

“No no, I’m serious,” Joe said, drawing back so they could look each other face-to-face more easily. “I’m serious. What do you want? We fell into this shit without even talking about it. So, do you want to stop entirely, do you want me to stop sleeping with broads, do you want something else? What?”

For a long few minutes, George was quiet. He reached up and played idly with Joe’s hair; he had gotten it cut recently, and it was bristly to the touch but oddly soft, clean and neat. He hadn’t bothered to turn a light on when he came in, and now as the evening stretched on it was getting dark, except for the bright street lamp just outside the window.

“I want to hear you say it,” he said finally. “Last night you kept saying this was just sex, but you and I both know that’s not true.”

“It’s not just sex,” Joe said quietly. “It’s something more, and I still don’t know _what_ it is—I don’t know if two guys can be in any real kind of relationship, I don’t know if it can last—but I want it to. Okay?”

“Okay. And, you know, living in different states it’s going to be tough and I’m not treating this like a marriage or anything. I don’t care who you sleep with. But—for God’s sake stop _telling_ me about it. And I’d like to take you to Rhode Island some time. Just, you know, introduce you to people, show you where I live, that kind of stuff. I feel like you forget about me the second I leave and I hate that. I want—Christ.” He was blushing. He felt about twelve years old, and he badly wanted a smoke, but Babe had taken all of his. “I just want to feel like I matter, okay? ’Cuz I’m crazy about you, Joe. It’d be nice to know if you felt the same.”

“I… yeah.”

Warmth bloomed in George’s chest, and he knew the grin on his face could best be described as goofy.

“You yeah?” he asked, teasingly bumping Joe’s knee with his own.

“Yeah,” Joe repeated softly. He leaned up and initiated a long, slow kiss. When he broke away he touched his lips to the hollow of George’s throat, and a shiver crept up George’s spine. “Anything else?”

“Um.” It was difficult to think of sentences at the moment. “Babe knows, and Malarkey knows—Bill should probably know. He’ll be pissed if he’s the last to find out.”

“Might be pissed anyway,” Joe muttered darkly. “But okay, I’ll think about it.”

“And—like I said, I don’t give two shits who you sleep with. But nothing _serious_ , okay? No _dating_ other people while you’re seeing me.”

There was a rather ominous pause, and George felt a rush of air against his neck as Joe sighed.

“I don’t know if I can do that, George.”

He pursed his lips together tightly to try and keep the crashing wave of curses that roared through his mind from escaping. He took a deep breath and said in a tight voice, “Why not, Joe?” No dice. “Why the _fuck_ not? Jesus _Christ_ , you don’t even like sex with girls, that’s pretty fucking obvious—is there another guy?” he asked, sudden cold creeping up his spine. Joe only scoffed.

“Of course not.”                             

“Of course, don’t ‘of course’ me, how the hell am I supported to know? One minute you’re apologizing, saying you want to be with me, the next it’s this bullshit.” Agitated, he pulled himself away from Joe’s grasp and stood. He shoved his hands in his pockets and swore. “I need a smoke, you got a cigarette?”

“George, listen—”

“Do you have a cigarette?” he repeated, each syllable spat out like rhythmic bullets from a machine gun.

For a silent moment, they stared at each other. Then Joe pointed at his jacket, hanging on a hook by the door. George walked over and rifled through the pockets. There was a half-empty pack of Lucky Strikes in the right pocket, and he stole three of them. His hands shook as he lit one, and he stared determinedly into the kitchen and away from Joe for a few more minutes. As an afterthought, he flicked the light switch up and the growing shadows shrunk away.

“Be honest, Joe, does this mean shit to you?” he asked. He felt tired.

“You know it does.”

“I know jack shit. Well what do _you_ want, huh?”

“It’s not a matter of what _I_ want,” he said, raising his voice just a little bit. He looked more sober now—but then, he had always been pretty good at holding his liquor. He was a big guy. “It’s not just me, okay? It’s my family. They’re worried about me. I was in the hospital for _months_ , George. I thought I was going to die for a long time even after I got home and they had to watch me go through that. Then I lost three goddamn jobs in a row, I was having nightmares, and I moved away from home. I changed, they know I did, and not always for the better. If they knew how much I changed…” Joe shuddered. Actually _shuddered_. George stared, dumbstruck, and blew out a mouthful of smoke. Toye didn’t get scared. That wasn’t how things worked. “Your family’s Catholic, you know how it is. There’s _nothing_ more important than the family, doing right by your family and right by God. They want me to get married and have kids and everything, and I don’t know if I can just throw all that away. My dad—”

He broke off, shaking his head, and George rubbed at his temple.

“Does your family ever want you to be happy?” he asked in a dull voice. He leaned against the wall and smoked his cigarette, staring at the light on the ceiling because it was easier than looking Joe in the face.

“Come on, George, don’t—”

“No, no, I’m serious. It’s just that every time I hear about ’em it’s something new they want you to do or something you don’t want to tell them and you’re always fucking miserable about it. Jesus Christ, you’re a grown man, aren’t you?”

“So what’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Joe said waspishly. His crutches were lying on the floor beside the couch, and he fumbled with them and stood up, walking over to where George stood, still leaning against the wall. “I need to be a man and cut off everybody I don’t get along with _all_ the time? That’s not how it works, Luz, and you know it. This thing between us, not everyone is going to get it. Lots of people won’t, and it’s my right to choose how I’m going to work through that. And if… if I really am queer, I have a right to figure that out myself, don’t I?”

“You do,” George answered simply. So where does that leave me?”

Joe reached out a hand and cupped his cheek. His voice was rough and low.

“Right here. I’m not saying I’m going to go out and get married tomorrow. I’m just saying… I’m still trying to figure this out. I want to be with you, for now and for... as long as I can. And I don’t want to make promises that I might have to break.”

The skin of Joe’s hand was coarse with callouses against George’s cheek, but he couldn’t help but lean into the touch. He sighed again and scratched his forehead with the hand holding his cigarette, breathing in the comforting smell of smoke.

“All right,” he said. “I can—I can give you time to figure it out. But don’t do it without talking to me. You talk too much already, but I think I can stand it,” he joked feebly, and Joe smiled.

“I can do that,” he murmured, and he leaned in for a slow, sweet kiss. George rested his hands lightly on Joe’s shoulders and closed his eyes. His whole body felt exhausted, and he breathed out a low sigh as he indulged in the pleasure of Joe’s touch. After a moment, Joe drew back. “Know what I really want right now?”

“To stop talking about your feelings?” George smirked.

“Yeah, that’s one thing. Really I just—I just want to go to bed, okay, and wake up and find you still here and not have to talk about this or, or worry about what’s going to happen or—”

“Sergeant Toye, are you suggesting we shirk our responsibilities?” George interrupted. Joe lifted his eyes to the ceiling and sighed.

“Your Winters voice sucks.”

“I know, I know. It’s hard to make Quakers into jokes.”

“I changed my mind. _I_ am going to bed, and when I wake up you are going to be long gone or so help me Luz—”

George interrupted him with another kiss and, smiling, led him back to the bedroom.


End file.
